It’s a big week for bike-sharing news in the Bay Area – earlier we discussed the regional bike-sharing system slated to come online before the America’s Cup, and now we learn that City CarShare, the Bay Area non-profit car-sharing club, has secured federal funding for a project to begin offering electric bike rentals in San Francisco. When implemented later this year, City CarShare members will be able to rent electric bikes “by the hour”, the same way they currently rent cars.
The organization hopes to encourage better mode choices by showing the prices of the vehicles side-by-side, challenging the borrower to decide whether their trip or errand can in fact be completed on two wheels instead of four. The pilot project will include 90 bikes at 25 locations mostly in San Francisco and Berkeley. Bike rates are expected to be 50 to 70 percent lower than City CarShare’s hourly car prices, which can be as low as $5 per hour. [New York Times Green Blog]
